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HELP! Synchronizing dub audio track taken from VHS with MKV (ESB 97 SE)

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 (Edited)

Can someone please help me with this? I’m at my wits’ end…

I’m trying to synch my native language (czech) dub audio of The Empire Strikes Back SE 1997 taken from VHS with Adywan’s 1080p reconstruction (not “Revisited”). But I’m keep failing.

My initial thoughts were: VHS (PAL) are 25 fps and Adywan’s file is 23.976 fps. So I just slowed down the czech track in audacity (change tempo) by -4.096% and though that will do the trick…but it didn’t.

I then tried to measure two same spots in both tracks so that the start and end align. I managed to align start and end of both tracks, but there were misalignments in the middle…

It is kinda hard to believe that there would any differences in each scene on vhs version and the one by Adywan, but that’s how it looks to me now…and yes, I was checking alignment of sounds with clear hits like laser blasts (definitely not something like vader’s dub).
VHS is 2000 Original Trilogy Special Edition box.

Here is a link for both audio files (both thinned down mp3 100mb each) if someone would be so kind and take a look
(btw, there is a short intro in the czech dub version which should be cut)

https://mega.nz/folder/p49EzIwa#k6TwkmjNo27oQlfHSFnPSQ

Any advice at this point would be helpful to me.
Thanks.

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My first project was similar. I was syncing another audio track to a SW preservation and I realized that the video and audio, being from different masters, tended to go out of sync at the reel changes (about every 20 minutes). It’s because of missing or extra frames when they edit it together.

Additionally, VHS recordings, being analog, may be sped up or slowed down because of recording or playback equipment. It’s usually tiny, but it becomes additive over time.

Dr. M

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Thats weird…So how did you resolve it? (Or didn’t?)

I really don’t want to go scene by scene. I’m trying to find a software which would be able to sync them automatically, meaning strech and shrink parts of an audio track based on peaks in waveform of another audio track. Cubase and Nuendo allegedly can do that, but some ppl say there are too noticable distortions in the end result…

Anyone has a suggestion or experience with this?

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When I was sync’ing those vintage audio recordings of the Star Wars In-theatre screenings to the film’s theatrical versions at 23.976fps, I discovered that the speed on these audio recordings would fluctuate—portions would be faster and other would be slower. I had to make copies of these recordings at different speeds and pick parts from these copies to fit the final length. I came up with an edit of the audio-screenings that were serviceable, even though the audio wasn’t sync’d right-down to the millisecond.

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Hi, tomalakis,
Just wondering how that project of yours came out.

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Hi, I’ve painstaikingly synced (cut+shift) the track with the original one in audacity. It took me like 2 days so wasn’t exactly herculean feat. I think the result is decent. I can share it if anyone’s interested.